Real Programmers... - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbm.com/%7Elindahl/real.programmers.html

<comment><USER2> _The academics in computer science have gotten into the "_____" rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some special language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly which constructs, of course, and the example they use to show their particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some obscure journal or another-- clearly not enough of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000 line programs that WORKED (Really!). Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000 line program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the _____ in the world won't help you solve a problem like that-- it takes actual talent._

This paragraph still holds, and it does so for any quiche-eating,effete value of _____.

<comment><USER3> Funny how often Real Programmers deride ______ while using _____ - 1. The Real Programmer's objection to ______ is always that it isn't performant or practical or available on the right platforms. In other words, Real Programmers stick to mature, widely-deployed technologies and become prodigiously adept at dealing with their (well-known) shortcomings while the idealistic Quiche-Eaters fight against the shortcomings of immature, incomplete systems that have unknown and often show-stopping flaws. It doesn't sound to me like Quiche-Eating programmers (distinct from Quiche-Eating pundits/academics) have it any easier than the Real Programmers. They may even be a little bit braver. (You might not want them working for you, though. Let some other company or project bear the burden of polishing immature technologies.)

<comment><USER2> While what you say is interesting, I consider it orthogonal to the statement given, namely that understanding _____ without real-world programming experience is not helpful when facing a real-world program for the first time.

Or more simply, _____ is never a silver bullet.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. I think a programmer would be much worse off facing his first real-world programming problem armed only with an instruction set and a hex editor than if he had a C compiler and knowledge of C. Just knowing how structs and functions work gives you some mental tools for solving the problem. "Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the _____ in the world won't help you solve a problem like that" just doesn't make sense if read literally -- is he claiming that no set of ideas for structuring programs actually enhances your abilities at all? "It takes actual talent" is just an empty truism (like "______ is never a silver bullet.") So the statement falls apart when taken seriously, which calls the attitude it expresses into doubt.

And that's the dual thrust of the article. It doesn't just make fun of Quiche- Eaters. It also makes fun of Real Programmers. The humor is based on the difficulty of drawing a line between progressivism and trendiness. Or, to turn it around, the difficulty of drawing a line between pragmatism and fatalism. The article is written from the point of view of someone who errs on the side of fatalism (believing that no new ideas will ever prove useful) and who makes fun of people who err on the side of trendy prissiness (turning up their noses at anything mature enough to actually work.) The Real Programmer speaking in the article manages, quite ironically, to make just much fun of Real Programmers as Quiche-Eaters. Consider the paragraph you quoted. Of _course_ the most appropriate ideas for finding your way around a legacy system are the ideas that were used to _create_ that system! That illustrates how the (caricature) Real Programmer's perception of technical superiority is skewed by a lack of historical perspective (quite funny given his relish for history.) Quiche-eating, effete values of _____ have a way of turning into Real Programmer stuff when they became widespread and uncool. That means a lot of today's Real Programmer stuff consists of yesterday's quiche. Structured programming? That's _C_! The present-day Real Programmer sees himself as the inheritor of the guy who scorned present-day tools as effete, not as the inheritor of the Quiche-Eaters who pushed the development of present-day tools. (Likewise, one might parody Quiche-Eaters as not _wanting_ their ideas to suffer the indignity of becoming mature and practical.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1983? It's obvious this guy is just a kid. The stuff he talks about is new stuff. OS/370, 029 keypunches, Fortran 66, Quiche, for god's sake? I started programming in college in Fortran II on a 7094 running UMES (University of Michigan Executive System). The 360 let alone the 370 was yet to appear. Quiche had yet to make it across the Atlantic. My roommate told tales of his summer job in high school, programming an IBM 650 for NASA. The 650 didn't even have core memory, just a drum.

It wasn't "Real Programmers". It was "Real Men" programmed in Assembly Language. "Boys" programmed in Fortran. We had our testosterone unadulterated. Except an old coot told me, "Real Men do it in binary."

None of this Pac-Man stuff. We played baseball using the index register lights on the 7094 console and Space War on the PDP-1. We didnt use terminals or even the newfangled terminals, just the trusty 026 keypunch.

I tell you, we were Real Men, even the girls.

<comment><USER5> Fortran II? Real Programmers used FAP! [EDIT: Fortran Assembly Program]

I have fond memories of the Bendix G15 - a drum memory machine where each instruction included the address of the next instruction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, I sat down to read this with the preconceived notion that it would be part of an ancient language war, but instead discovered one of the most cleverly written pieces of satire I can remember.

I especially like how the things he derides as belonging to "quiche eaters" (notably Unix, Emacs, and Vi), are what we consider 'hardcore tools for real programmers' today.

<comment><USER7> In 20 years real programmers will program in Visual Basic and Quiche eaters/script kiddies will just go brain-to-binary with a SQUID.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I still think my favorite "hackers of old" story is The Story of Mel: <http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> _If there is not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things more challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation._

Wow, some things never change ;-)

</comment><comment><USER10> _If you can't do it in Fortran, do it in assembly language. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing._

Physics department guys in my university had this printed out and stapled to the wall. Pretty much all math modeling libraries they wrote were in Fortran with some bottlenecks redone in assembly. It was more than 20 years ago though :)

<comment><USER11> It hasn't changed that much, at least not at the University where I got my Computational Physics degree in 2006. Instead of FORTRAN70 everyone was using Fortran 90 (using F70-era libraries) and I don't think anyone was doing any assembly language programming as the modern compilers even do autovectorisation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Seems to parallel how some of the Pascal/C/C++ era programmers feel about Python/Ruby/PHP web developers of today.

<comment><USER13> There had been a Pascal era, but C and especially C++ are still alive and very much current.

Even then, those two sets of languages aren't really comparable. Where it does hold true is how lot of the C and C++ programmers feel about Java and C#.

<comment><USER12> I didn't mean to imply that C and C++ were from a bygone era. Even Fortran is still used today, (though of course C and C++ are still in very wide use).

I just meant to draw a parallel about those who learned to program after the era of mainframes and terminals, on operating systems like Unix, Windows, and Mac OS but before the Web really became a true platform and how they would feel about web programmers. I included Pascal because it was discussed in the article extensively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I liked this:

"Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of Pascal, gave a talk once at which he was asked, "How do you pronounce your name?". He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert', or call me by value, 'Worth'.""

</comment><comment><USER15> A true classic, and wonderfully funny. Though I prefer tea.</comment>


Ask HN: Best time to look for jobs before moving? - <AUTHOR>

Two of my friends and I are looking to move to Portland, Oregon next July. However, we are not sure when we should start to reach out to try and find work. Should we wait until we arrive or should we try to get jobs 6, 3, 1 month in advance? I am a Full Stack Developer, then one is a Back End Developer and one is a Front End Developer. All of us are LEMP/LAMP developers. <comment><USER2> From a hiring manager perspective, you should make sure you know what you want before starting the search (industry, size of company, size of engineering team, compensation, relocation assistance, etc.) 6 months is a bit long, but 3 and 1 month prior are much more realistic. We just hired an engineer that'll be relocating from NC to NYC and the entire process (from day he applied to start date) was about 2 months exactly. As long as you're transparent with your timeline, the company shouldn't have many issues - especially in this market. Hope this helps.</comment>


HitForge: Another YC clone? - <AUTHOR> http://hitforge.com/

<comment><USER2> So I'm the guy behind Hit Forge.

It's changed - that PR is obsolete (Thanks PG, for helping with the strategy shift).

We're a straight early stage seed-investment fund. We invest in social-media early-stage web startups, putting in between $100-$500k. We maintain specialist resources to help with SEO and Viral Marketing. We provide free office space to our companies, if they want them. We have a one-page no-hassle termsheet, where we buy something that looks a lot like common stock. We don't try to control the company. We help with future fundraising (see my blog at <http://www.venturehacks.com>). And we decide very quickly.

PG pointed this out to me as a gap in the market for early stage web companies, and he is absolutely right.

See you all at Y-Combinator D-Day.

</comment><comment><USER3> We know Naval, and it's not really a YC clone. Structurally it's more like Idealab or Obvious Inc, in that they develop ideas in house and then spin them off if they succeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's an interesting concept, but the setup takes away a lot of the incentives that drive people to not have a life for months on end so they can succeed. If a venture succeeds, the people who actually did it only get a fraction of the payoff. If they don't succeed, everything's still okay since they can wait for someone else to succeed and still see a payoff.

If everyone's waiting for another venture to succeed, they're not trying as hard to make theirs succeed.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am little suspicious about the website itself. It doesn't contain who's who (funny they're asking your resume without revealing their resumes). It doesn't contain contact details like phone number, postal address, etc. It's all up in the air.

Seems like good old Nigerian emails scandal written all over it.

<comment><USER6> it's done by the guy who sold epinions to eBay. and the guy who is helping out entrepreneurs with VentureHacks. and he just invested in twitter.

<comment><USER5> Well its good to know that it is a legitimate website. I would prefer who's who to be, contact details, links to their blogs, etc on the website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool: not concerned about geography - that would be ideal for me.

Dubious: I'd like to see a name or two associated with it, or a little bit more about them. I mean, anyone can put up a web page...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what concerned me. There is only one link and that is to email them an application. No other names associated and parts of read like marketing mumbo- jumbo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Socialistic (community) approach to become capitalists (rich) - seems like a problem here.

<comment><USER9> It does seem like a problem: sharing the upside and the downside makes people less determined and focused to succeed.

However who knows? The scale of the Internet business is such that things like open source are thriving; this idea might as well have good chances to live and grow.

Finally, people are different and have different needs, this may very well work for some folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Their business model is pretty unique; it doesn't really derive much from YC.

<comment><USER11> To expand a bit on that: HitForge does share some aspects with YC but those aspects aren't what made YC special. Namely, YC wasn't the first investor of small monies in the seed stage or the first investor with technical insight. I'd say calling something a "YC clone" is meaningful if it does what YC was first at and the result is in large part a similar investor.

"The Hit Forge is a group of entrepreneurial engineers building mass-market web properties." What is YC? I think most people can't answer that clearly. To quote the home page: "Y Combinator is a new kind of venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups." That doesn't tell us new in what kind. I mean, incubator investors share such a description, but pg makes a point YC isn't one. But it's enough here to point out that, unlike YC, HitForge is some kind of a "co-operative" and if you fail your company you can still profit from the other companies.

What kind an investor is depends on who is the owner, why they invest, and how the ownership is implemented. The second part is what the investor does: what's the investment product, who are the customers, and how the operations are run. Answering these questions can take you a long way already.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just discovered an article about it: <http://gigaom.com/2007/04/25/hitforge/></comment>


The EU Copyright Directive: What Redditors in Europe Need to Know - <AUTHOR> https://redditblog.com/2018/11/28/the-eu-copyright-directive-what-redditors-in-europe-need-to-know/ <comment><USER2> If Reddit and other similar sites want to make a point, a banner won't be enough. They need to do the unthinkable: Block all access from the EU.

If the legislation as written is going to make it impossible to do business in the region, then that's what these companies are facing eventually anyways. This sucks for them, sucks for users, sucks for everyone. So let's have a taste of what that looks like. A preview.

Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Instagram, TwitchTV, etc. All the websites where the content is made by users. As a group, shut down for 24 hours within the EU, instead displaying a simple page explaining the problem and what can do done about it.

Until they're willing to do that, the users don't know or care what they're talking about. Legislators are relying on a population who is too distracted to care what they're doing. Well, fine, let's take away the distractions.

<comment><USER3> I live in the EU and I fully support this. Youtube should block all access from EU, as well as Reddit and others. The legislation is insane.

<comment><USER4> nothing would be lost, i visit reddit for some subredits but if it gets blocked i can do what i did before reddit and go back to forums.

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't the forums have the same problem...

They're even smaller, with less resources.. wouldn't they have even more incentive to block the EU?

<comment><USER6> If they're not for profit, the regulation won't cover them as I read it. Not will it cover them if they make money but have under 250 employees and turnover under €50M.

<comment><USER7> If I were in a position to comply I think I would be very happy about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's perfectly fine to share links, the EU directive specifically states so. What you can't do, is take content, and host it as your own without getting authorization to do so by the content creator.

You can probably imagine why that would be a problem from Reddit.

I don't personally care if companies like reddit get to face the harshest possible fines from the EU, they are morally bankrupt after all. I mean, almost every image posed on reddit is a form of piracy, and very rarely does the original content creators actually benefit from having their works shared or altered on reddit, and that's not even touching their shady political and commercial manipulation. On the other hand, I really doubt that EU legislation will ever be successful in stopping people from sharing dank memes.

Also, I'm guessing this only applies to the desktop version of reddit, because would be impossible to see anything on the mobile version anyway since everything is blocked by all those "USE OUR APP" banners.

<comment><USER9> _Morally_ bankrupt? Copyright is not a moral issue, it is just a several centuries old regulation created by people who could never have envisioned something like the Internet. The effort to turn copyright into a moral issue is nothing more than a tactic employed by copyright-based industries in their desperate bid to stay relevant without changing their business models.

<comment><USER10> The potential moral issue is that the creator of the work (author, photographer, artist, musician) receives no compensation for widespread use of their work. On the other hand, the publishing company or record label or other middleman almost always makes most of the money anyway. An illegal but morally somewhat right thing I've seen people do is to pirate the work and pay the artist directly, cutting out most of the expense while still benefiting the creator.

<comment><USER9> There is no moral obligation for people to be paid for their work, even if other people enjoy that work, even if it is widespread. Are you going to track down every person who told you a funny joke at a bar that you go around repeating to your friends, or perhaps feel guilty about repeating that joke?

The idea that there is moral obligation to pay authors for their writing was itself a tactic used by the publishing industry to establish copyright law _when it was first being debated_. As you point out, publishers almost always receive the bulk of the money while creators receive little if any compensation. Copyright has _always_ been about business interests and not about morality.

<comment><USER11> > There is no moral obligation for people to be paid for their work

Make sure to tell your boss.

<comment><USER12> He and his boss have a contract. That's the difference.

<comment><USER8> So do you and the content creator.

I mean, we've all laughed at the "you wouldn't steal a car" commercials, and the truth is, if you could download and 3D print a car, risk free, you probably would steal it.

The underlying social part of that statement is both true and interesting though. Because the reason you wouldn't steal a car is because of the social contract you have with other members of society. We don't steal from each other, and if we do, society punishes us.

That's basically what the EU is doing with this legislation, and sure, its annoying, but I have a hard time seeing how it's wrong.

<comment><USER13> There is a very hard difference between stealing something from someone, which deprives them from having access to it, and copying it, which doesn't. The first one is considered morally wrong by everyone here, the second one is argued not to be.

<comment><USER8> Maybe if you're comparing piracy to stealing of personal goods, but if you steel a few gallons of milk from your local supermarket then you're not depriving them of selling that particular brand of milk either.

Digital products are easy to replicate, so they're obviously different, but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with them. Well you can, because it's extremely hard to regulate, but that frankly doesn't make it any better from a moral point of view.

<comment><USER14> > but if you steel a few gallons of milk from your local supermarket then > you're not depriving them of selling that particular brand of milk either.

You've deprived them from selling those specific gallons of milk to someone else and caused them a direct monetary loss. Conflating that with brand is intellectually dishonest.

> but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with them. Well you can, > because it's extremely hard to regulate, but that frankly doesn't make it > any better from a moral point of view.

Yes it does, it's hard to regulate because it's stupid precisely because you haven't actually deprived them of anything which makes it morally not wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > like sharing links to news articles

Aren't there repeated statements in the text that links are not covered?

> the use of existing content for creative new purposes (r/photoshopbattles, > anyone?) would suddenly become questionable under the law

What's actually changed about the law here? AFAIK the rights for fair use aren't changed, and using copyrighted content otherwise is already legally questionable.

<comment><USER15> The problem is the liability will now fall on the host rather than the uploader.

<comment><USER16> And even with less extreme rules we already had YT ContentID which errs on the side of the possible rights holder even if they aren't actually holding the rights.

<comment><USER6> A13 seems to require that users can dispute things (and that rightsholders have to justify the takedown), requirements of proportionality and I think also requires an independent body setup by member states to raise these issues up to if not properly solved.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but it still leads to overbroad takedown through filters first, maybe corrections after. Because everything else is simply too much risk for the platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could someone clarify the impact of this legislation on decentralized platforms?

It seems to me that all of the problems here stem from the fact that there's a centralized entity that is profiting from the re-use of links.

If you have a peer-to-peer protocol with no-one to "go after" so to speak, what happens then?

On the face of it this legislation looks bad, but could it be seen as a good thing if it sows the seeds for decentralized platforms to outcompete centralized ones (because they have a competitive advantage due to lower cost)?

The users themselves don't seem to be committing any crime by posting the links - it seems like the website, owned by a company or individual, ends up being chased after. So what if they don't exist?

<comment><USER18> I don't think it's "a good thing" that they're making it harder to run online services.

I agree that the likely outcome is that decentralised systems get better, and I agree that that outcome would be a good thing. I still don't think the end justifies the means, and would rather see politicians just leave the internet alone: [https://www.eff.org/cyberspace- independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence)

<comment><USER17> I agree.

Perhaps I'm just jaded; it seems obvious to me that the political view on copyright is radically out of touch with constituents, and copyright law is morphing from something that's a bit weird, to probably OTT, to evil, and eventually into complete absurdity as a result.

The entire system benefits a tiny number of elite players whilst the man on the street ignores copyright completely - unless their choice is restricted (e.g. DRM) they won't even think about violating it, it's "not a thing" to them.

If I thought that the legal system accurately represented the desires of the population, centralized entities wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem. It blatantly obviously doesn't, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > especially on small and medium-sized companies like Reddit

slightly OT, but is Reddit really a small / medium-sized company? or are they seriously downplaying it to get sympathy?

<comment><USER20> According to Wikipedia, Reddit itself has 230 employees. Advance Publications is private, though; I can't find numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> EU citizen here.

I keep using reddit but I have to admit the content quality has decreased. I keep going on it just like people like to go to facebook, just to entertain myself.

If reddit was blocked, I guess I would just give up using it.

<comment><USER22> i don't know a single other forum where you can converse with "EU citizens" other than /r/europe . I also follow other local reddits to find out the odd news that are not typically reported. And reddit is fun, entertaining, that's its value proposition and is based on the community, with posts being generally just a conversation starter. I would need an alternative to it.

I also bet a lot of publications are going to miss the traffic it gives them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> reddit makes money when a user shares a link. EU just disrupts their business model and they are defending.

<comment><USER24> Link target also (almost always) make money when visiting the site. They want the publicity from all sources. Nobody small lives on direct traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Guys this is meant for platforms that continuously allow users to upload fully copyrighted stuff, offer no good takedown and just point to the users when asked. "We're a platform so the user is responsible".

Thousand, maybe millions, of Youtube videos by small channels are re-uploaded to FB everyday and essentially stolen.

Watch this, for example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q)

This law just says: ehm no Facebook, you ARE responsible for this, and you can't just say 'talk to the user / page who stole it'.

The way Reddit and others interpret it is just because they don't want to be legally beholden to laws that protect people smaller than they are. And they're calling it a 'ban on memes' to get people online to protest it like useful idiots.

No one read the texts but everyone is angry.

<comment><USER26> Reddit allows image and video uploads nowadays by users.

How is Reddit supposed to filter all of it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Initially I thought this was an appropriate and proportionate response. However, I eventually realised that doing so would be a tacit admission of acceptance of the extra-territorial ambition of the Directive and its application - which would be far worse, if we're truly concerned about global freedoms and rights.

The morally correct response, as an organisation outside of the EU in terms of its presence and activities, would be to ignore the Directive, just as thousands of other bits of local legislation are by routine and convention.

Unfortunately, Reddit is a subsidiary of Advance Publications, which I expect has physical operations in the EU and can therefore become subject to ransom locally. In which case, perhaps banning EU citizens in the EU from accessing Reddit is the most viable and proportionate moral response after all. It would mean I lose access, but I strongly believe that the European Commission monster must be tamed and cut down to size.

</comment><comment><USER28> What is the end game for Reddit if this does pass? Will it just block European users?

<comment><USER29> Upload filters ala Google's ContentId. The impact will be similar to Youtube in the short term. Since Reddit is GIFs not audio it will be topical things like FIFA replays etc.

The ultimate goal is to lay ground work for filtering/shadow banning political content. But that will happen slowly, not overnight.

<comment><USER30> Which of course is where the truth comes out.

This _helps_ big tech players at the little guys' expense. Big companies can build their own content filters. Small companies can't, and are forced to buy content filtering software or services from the big companies.

<comment><USER31> As far as I can tell it doesn't even help the big players, Google has said it is economically impossible to be compliant with article 11 [https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/11/12/2045240/youtube- ceo...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/11/12/2045240/youtube-ceo-says-eus- proposed-copyright-regulation-financially-impossible)

There's a big difference between a DMCA system where the content host has the responsibility to take down copyrighted content in a reasonable time frame, while having safe harbor protection in cases where content gets through, versus a "non-safe harbor" law where you literally cannot allow any copyrighted content _on upload_, or you can be held liable. It would be impossible to decide who owns what, even for Google, and so they would need to have some other system that is not user generated content (who knows what).

User-generated content is the life blood of the web, it's why everyone can communicate and we have this new world, we simply need it I think. I really disagree with others who try to frame this as if Google and Reddit are simply another company trying to defend their turf. This is a real blunder for the EU and completely misinformed IMO

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Who are the companies behind these directives? Who are we fighting against?

<comment><USER33> Probably German media "giants" like Springer and Bertelsmann. They don't get their shit done and are losing mind share each year, so they are panicking. However their influence on politics is still strong, therefore they can pull off stuff like that.

<comment><USER34> Probably since GDPR will decimate most targeted advertising based businesses, they need to find another way to make money.

The natural solution are paywalls but those don't work since people end up just copying the content and pasting it elsewhere. Shit, even journalists themselves rip off each others stories, paraphrasing the whole thing and then linking back to the source website. It's so prevalent that hacker news even has a rule about posting the original link to a story.

<comment><USER34> Example copying and pasting paywalled article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18675496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18675496)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The thing I can't understand is why on earth would anyone want to leave an organisation like the European Union?

</comment><comment><USER36> Every European reading this should call their local parlament representative and the EU authorities themselves and tell them their opinion on this subject (I know this kind of action can actually help in the EU).

</comment><comment><USER37> With GDPR and now this, EU is asking to be blocked off from the rest of the world. So be it.

<comment><USER38> GDPR is good

<comment><USER39> Can you give me one example where it has helped(not the it would be helpful) the users. All I see now is everyone including FB and Google using the same privacy model, and just ask for big "consent", which is not much better than age old T and C, as I do it without reading it anyways.

<comment> abc-xyz Anyone who doesn't care about protecting people's privacy don't care because they don't understand how the data can and will be used. If they did understand and continued not to care (or god fodbid, continued to violate) then they're morally bankrupt.

GDPR is amazing because it forces companies to think twice about the data they collect. Uneducated users tend to blame EU because some of their favorite websites (e.g. imgur) suddenly have a overlay that forces users to consent to them allowing themselves and a hundred random companies to violate users' privacy and force those who don't consent to manually click the opt out button a hundred different times. This should be a wakeup call for people to abandon these evil websites/companies rather than to blame EU.

<comment><USER39> Don't get me wrong, but I hate this kind of response. It has been many months since GDPR arrived. "This should be a wakeup call" is exactly what I was not asking. Either it has been till now, or will never be. Based on my personal experience, it's the latter for data collecting companies like FB. Unless you change my mind by giving any example of good changes in data collecting sites that has been forced due to GDPR.

> users to consent to them allowing themselves

Isn't it almost the same with always present terms and conditions, which like GDPR consent I and most other users generally don't read.

<comment> abc-xyz Even if you can't see it with your own eyes then you can be sure that thousands of companies (including the one I work for) are collecting a lot less data than they normally would (after all, it's often impossible to know exactly what data is being collected, for how long, and how it will be stored). I'm sure you've also noticed some websites even blocked EU visitors until they had time to comply with the law, at least I saw a couple of stories and comments about it on HN. And if the companies didn't care/worry then why would they even bother with consenting overlays?

A lot more people (and not just the tech folks) are also beginning to care about their privacy (not only because of GDPR but I do believe it has had one of the biggest influences, along with the Facebook scandals, China's growing dystopia, etc).

A lot of people (such as myself) also stopped using evil services like imgur, and use every opportunity to encourage people to do the same and spread awareness. Although I had mostly stopped visiting imgur links a long time ago, I didn't really start to bash them and block them completely until I saw their insane GDPR overlay where they showed how they share data with hundreds of different companies and even forced users to visit their websites to opt out.

Stopping people from using these websites/apps is a slow process, but just because you can't see drastic changes then it doesn't mean it isn't affecting them. Would you notice if Signal's userbase had grown by 20% as a result of people becoming aware of the importance of privacy due to GDPR, or if imgur/Facebook dropped by 15%? I wouldn't, but I did notice the likes of Google and Facebook facing multi-billion dollar fines. I've also noticed Facebook has been struggling a lot lately, and that Google has been facing a lot of backlash for their Dragonfly project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does the directive affect HN?

<comment><USER40> Most likely it won't as it only hosts text, and links + individual words is ok

(the reason I'm less worried about Art 11 is two fold: first is that I do agree that content scraping like Google News should be under agreement and that it will be worse for the news orgs than they think it will be)

<comment><USER20> But in much of the discussion, links are explicitly mentioned.

On the other hand, HN doesn't have ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Very slightly related, but I'm concerned. Reddit has recently implemented the NetzDG law and has yet to say if posts that are censored under that law will disappear only for German users or worldwide.</comment>


Death of a Biohacker - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/style/biohacker-death-aaron-traywick.html <comment><USER2> Taking ketamine in a sensory deprivation tank really doesn't sound like a sensible idea to me.

<comment><USER3> You're probably aware of John C. Lilly, if not worth reading some of his work: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly#Exploration_of_h...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly#Exploration_of_human_consciousness)

<comment><USER2> I wasn't! So he's the guy that developed the sensory deprivation tank, and then started using them to take psychedelics in. Thanks for mentioning it, I never realised there was a link.

<comment><USER4> and that's not even including the part about talking with dolphins

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > She thought it likely that he had taken the drug, lost consciousness in the > tank and drowned.

Why no autopsy?

</comment><comment><USER6> The article reads more like the death of a lying, scheming drug addict.

<comment><USER7> Most of the few biohackers I've come across are mentally ill or otherwise reckless and dangerous. I hate being against open knowledge-building, but a world where real viruses are build, modified and transmitted in a similar way to computer viruses is a world I don't want to live in.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Standard freelance web development rates - <AUTHOR> 	I've been a freelance web developer for a while now, just something i do alongside college to help myself out. I've been getting work through freelancer all this time which i noticed is way too cheap comparing to the real thing. I was getting ready for a while now to start an online portfolio and start getting work through it, but i have no idea how much web developers usually charge, and no idea either where to get clients. So any help is appreciated I create:<p>-Website templates<p>-E-commerce websites<p>-Wordpress/Joomla themes<p>-Some SEO from time to time<p>-Adding responsiveness to websites<p>-Website designs<p>-Dynamic websites<p>If any experienced web developer could tell me how much they usually charge for any of those services i'd be very grateful <comment><USER2> I charge whatever I can get! Rates also have to do with where you are, who you know, reputation, and what other offers you have on the table. That being said, here is what I would estimate each at:

-Website templates I buy all of mine from themeforest for like $30. I don't see why anyone would do otherwise unless they needed something really custom. I don't like designing website templates, so I would charge $200/hr (a.k.a. I'll never do this)

-E-commerce websites $75/hr

-Wordpress/Joomla themes Again buy themes from themeforest cheap. Wordpress site maintenance and installation seems to go for $20-$50/hr around here.

-Some SEO from time to time Experts will charge as much as $100/hr, basic stuff like putting meta tags in or running a google ads campaign could go as low as $20/hr

-Adding responsiveness to websites Nowadays this often means starting from scratch. I try to quote for the whole project on something like this, but to give you an idea I would say around $40 an hour (give or take 20)

-Website designs Same as above. ~$40

-Dynamic websites I'm assuming this means webapp? I charge around $85/hr for webapps. Usually using angular. I also have started putting the webapps through cordova/phonegap, which is an easy upsell.

And to icpmacdo's point: -remote backend development Same as webapps, around $85/hr seems to be the magic number. This is VERY dependant on who you know and where they are located.

Note: All of my rates may seem high for people who find projects online, not in person. They may seem low for experts in their given field. Also, I find the larger the company, the higher the rate. For backend work you could probably get double that if you are an expert in large corporation java work.

<comment><USER3> Can you provide information as to where you are located? These rates seem pretty low IMO, and you speak to location being an important variable, it would be helpful to know what region you're referencing.

<comment><USER2> I am in New England (USA). These rates are a reflection of what I've seen companies are willing to pay, not necessarily what I'll accept. For example, I have not found an effective way to get more than about $40/hr for Wordpress maintenance, so I have shifted to more backend and webapp work. Also, these rates are more of an average. Depending on the length, stability, and enjoyability of the project, I may be willing to work for more or less money.

<comment><USER4> Where do you find work?

<comment><USER2> Local tech meetups, friends, and family, and local tech meetups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I used to charge different rates for different things, but then I realized my time is what's valuable, not so much the task I'm doing. So I switched to $200/hr and stopped wasting time and energy figuring out whether I should be clocked in for this rate, or "that task really falls under that category", or classifying tasks/justifying rates. It's all so much more simple and the client really doesn't care either way I've come to find.

Also, I am based in the SF Bay Area and most of my freelance clients are in California for reference.

<comment><USER5> This is the right attitude, i dont know why people's time differs in value depending on the task they are performing, you're still paying that person for their time. I understand that some tasks have a lower general market rate, but if the client specifically wants YOU, then you charge YOUR rate.

Whether the client wants you to create a complicated application doing statistical analysis, make a wordpress site, or sweep the floors, if they want YOU to do it, then they pay YOUR rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It depends on what your portfolio looks like, honestly. If you've got a bang- up portfolio, by all means do the $150-$200/hour people are recommending.

If your portfolio needs a little more polish, charge lower to get the experience.

When I started freelancing, I would purposefully undercharge and over-deliver, and let the client know that.

If you need to turn work down while you wait for those kinds of higher-paying gigs to come along, you can always sharpen and hone your skills by creating ecommerce templates for theme stores, and make money off of those sales.

It may not be the _most_ profitable, but it will keep you in practice in- between clients. The most important thing is that you remain prolific in your work and create a large body of content.

Not for them, but for your own skill set.

</comment><comment><USER7> Near Stuttgart, prices are around 1000€/day (+/-500€, depending on the experience), billed by quarter-day increments.

</comment><comment><USER8> I work in Paris, France. I charge 500 € / day for web dev. I charge 600 € / day for consulting.

<comment><USER9> Same Here, just finished my studies and I work usually for around 60€ / Hour for quick jobs (less than a Week). But I prefer to charge for full projects than by hour, since my work is more finally more of an web agency than a standard developer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I worked backwards from my target salary, divided by the amount of workdays in a year, with an added 15% contracting rate modifier.

So if I wanted to make 90k/y, my day rate would be :

> (90000 / 230) * 1.15 = $450 per 8-hour day.

PS: I don't like selling time in less than 4 hour batches either.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't recommend doing this.

What does your target salary have to do with the value of your work?

<comment><USER12> Um. You work for money. Generally one should have a target amount of money in mind (based on a budget). I rather like the calculation. I'll use it next time I do consulting.

<comment><USER13> Do you think this is how companies price their goods?

I mean, sure you should calculate a bare minimum rate. But you should charge as much as the market will bare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't do any visual design work, but I'll convert designs to HTML/CSS, though. I specialize in backend development and prefer taking that work when I can. For that, I charge $175/hr.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not to hijack the thread, but: what are typical rates for Machine Learning freelancing gigs?

</comment><comment><USER16> I haven't freelanced since starting my current position, but I was charging a flat $125/hr for the previous couple of years. I mostly do JavaScript/Node.js stuff and turn down the majority of the work that comes my way.

</comment><comment><USER17> To add to this I would be interested in know what the standard rate is for remote backend development, I know PHP and Node. Also is there much work online for hybrid app development? That's what I have the most experience with.

</comment><comment><USER18> I tell clients that I charge $150 per hour as an anchor. But most of the time price out projects as sprint based deliverables, not hours.

</comment><comment><USER19> Kiraken mentioned not knowing how to get new clients. That's something I tend to have issues with as well. Any suggestions?</comment>


We Have a Bad News Problem, Not a Fake News Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/17/we-have-a-bad-news-problem-not-a-fake-news-problem/ <comment><USER2> Both bad

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait snopes does news? How did I not know about this?

<comment><USER4> I think its relatively recent. This article has some background: [https://backchannel.com/according-to-snopes-fake-news-is- not...](https://backchannel.com/according-to-snopes-fake-news-is-not-the- problem-4ca4852b1ff0#.rwsxvipqg)

"To help, recently Snopes has begun to publish important news-related information as a resource for journalists and others. Last week, for example, Binkowski wrote a piece about how the electoral college functions that served as a reference for other reporters writing about the election. "It's really complex stuff that you can't just read about and then write about," she says. "We're going to be doing more of that.""</comment></comment>


Ask HN: AWS Marketplace for SaaS, is it worth for an API service? - <AUTHOR> We have an OSINT Threat Intelligence API for DevOps and SecOps and we are doing reasonably well, but we would like to expand our reach thanks to Marketplaces for SaaS and APIs. One of the most interesting places is the AWS Marketplace for SaaS.<p>I would like to hear from people using this marketplace the good and bad things. How is your experience? How much new subscriptions can they drive to your SaaS/API? Is it worth for an API business? Was it hard to integrate? <comment><USER2> I have a few products on AWS marketplace. My biggest complaint with AWS is that there is 0 visibility into conversion metrics as a publisher. You don't know how many times your listing appeared in search, who clicked on it but didn't signup etc. AWS shows ref tag reports, but they only tell you how much traffic you drove to the listing.

Also, optimizing search ranking for your product is hit-and-miss, with no clear guidelines or tips.</comment>


It Pays to Know Ruby: New York City's Top Tech Jobs (and Their Average Salary) - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/12/29/it-pays-to-know-ruby-new-york-citys-top-tech-jobs-and-their-average-salary/ <comment><USER2> I don't know if I would put too much trust in this list. From what I know about NYC salaries - 10 years freelancing at all kinds of companies, from startups to corporate behemoths - the numbers seem about $20k low, on average. PHP, Ruby and mobile devs that I know personally make $120+ (both freelancing and full time), more on Wall Street. Sales engineers make significantly more.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what the sample size was here. I noticed most of the salaries end in numbers that indicate a denominator of 3 or 4, such as 250 or 667. If that's really how small the sample set is, I'm not surprised that so many have seen the numbers as being low.

I'm also curious about the source of these numbers. I don't think I've seen a salary survey like this that's ever seemed anything but lower than what I know the market to be. That makes sense if employers are providing the numbers, as they'd like to pay less than they are currently paying for talent.

<comment><USER4> It's a placement agency so, yeah, don't fully trust those numbers.

Then again, you'd have to think that those numbers represent the sort of market that would use staffing agencies. So, if you want to come work for a financial titan, you can get more $$$ via direct negotiations / interviews. However, if you think you're coming here to work for an interactive media or B2B startup, then forget these numbers altogether. Those jobs pay everything from low market salaries to a cash/equity mix. We'll never get a clear picture of that market because, IRT insiders, it's in no one's best interest to talk about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Once again: Averages without variance have no meaning.

This is why, at school, you were taught how to calculate averages at the same time as calculating variance. The variance provides an indication of data spread and the two belong together, like fish and chips.

One without the other means incorrect inferences are more likely. Like here.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I'm sure they are counting on incorrect inferences. You know, using the super-senior dev's $250k salary to mask the introductory salary of $30k and stuff like that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those of you who live in New York City, what sort of standard of living do these salaries represent? Would one be comfortably be able to lease a 3 bedroom apartment within walking distance of work, in a neighborhood with good schools?

<comment><USER7> Thanks very much for all the replies. So 3 bedrooms basically doesn't even exist, but 1 and 2 is available. No answers on the school issues.

Is it uncommon then for developers living in New York City to have children? If you have kids, they all go in a single bedroom it seems and there's no room for a home office since there's no third bedroom.

If one is single I can see how it all works, but for those of us with kids I am not so clear. Some have mentioned elsewhere in the discussion that the listed salaries were around $20,000 less than realistic. Even with that, it is still substantially less than I make now, and we have a 4 bedroom with enough land for my wife to grow some vegetables and have a couple fruit trees. I've been contacted from recruiters a few times seeking to attract me to Manhattan. They say it is the new tech mecca. I haven't followed up though or priced property in the area. Looking here though, it sounds like talent would take a significant, perhaps monumental salary and lifestyle hit moving to the area. Just trying to understand how people make it work. Clearly it has a strong draw for many people.

<comment><USER8> Most of the developers I know are twenty-somethings. Some of the older devs have kids, but they usually don't live in Manhattan proper. Long Island City, Astoria, Brooklyn, New Jersey, etc, are much preferred. I know only one dev who lives in Manhattan.

Commuting is amazingly nice in this area.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the specific details. It sounds like those with children just all live in other cities and states. In places I have lived most of my life states are usually a bit farther apart, so the idea of commuting daily from another state sounds strange, but I did do that for a while when I worked in DC. The commute was far from pleasant though!

So regarding commuting, what sort of commute is involved for say the people living in New Jersey who work at a tech firm in New York City. Can it be done in 30 minutes? Is there a train that goes straight from one to the other or does one have to drive to a station first, park, etc. How far a walk is it on average from the nearest subway station exist to a tech firm office. Trying to get an idea how many minutes a day the commute would be. Thanks.

<comment><USER9> I'm a developer with children in NYC. If you don't want to live in another state, Brooklyn and Queens are fairly common options for tech folks who work in Manhattan.

Commuting from Brooklyn (which isn't technically another city) to where I work in Manhattan takes about 45 minutes. That includes the walks to and from the subway. It's a quite pleasant commute...I live far enough away that I basically always get a seat on the subway and can comfortably read on my way into work.

If you live closer to Manhattan, the rents go up and the commute gets shorter, but you're less likely to get a seat every morning. Standing isn't that big of a deal, but it makes it tougher to read sometimes.

I'd say 45 minutes each way is pretty easy. 30 minutes and under can be tougher and more expensive to pull off.

Walks to/from the Subway in Manhattan are typically less than 10 minutes, almost no matter where the office is. There's a lot of tech in the Union Square area, which has a ton of subway access.

In Brooklyn, depending on where you live, it can be a bit more of a walk to the subway, but I've never had more than a 12 minute walk and today I can do it in 5.

<comment><USER7> Thanks very much for the details, that give a much clearer idea about commutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These numbers seem low. But as for cost of living, don't live in New York itself. The longer your commute, the more you save. Time is the trade-off, of course. If you get some partial work-from-home, you're golden. I have a fairly nice sized (1200 square foot) apartment within 30 minutes by bus and train from work.

<comment><USER10> I ran some numbers to compare my current perks (NJ, less than 10 minutes drive, lunch at home) vs possible offer in NYC (about an hour of train and subway combined) and figured I'd need to ask 10k more to just to have same amount of money left after expenses for commute and lunching out. And I'm already making more that Ruby people from the OP list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, those numbers seem low to me, especially for NYC.

</comment><comment><USER12> This obviously doesn't include the financial industry. I know for a fact the average salary range is higher than this. In some of the medium sized firms, not even the large ones. Not to mention Perl is still a highly valued language in this industry which wasn't even included here.

I assume this sample is based on start ups only?

<comment><USER13> re: _sample_ \- Looking at CyberCoders job postings for New York right now it only shows 252 job posts in total so the sample is very small.

And you can slice and dice this kind of data in so many ways you can end of with many different types of results from it :)

Searching on CyberCoders for PHP, Python, Ruby & Perl at moment (in NY) returns these numbers of job posts...

      PHP      48
      Python   33
      Ruby     27
      Perl     13

However if we then break this down into clearly defined posts for a PHP developer, Python developer, etc we get...

      PHP      9
      Python   8
      Ruby     9   (3 Ruby, 6 RoR)
      Perl     1

And the average salary range given for these developer posts are...

      PHP      $80k - $121k
      Python   $93k - $128k
      Ruby     $83k - $128k
      Perl     $80k - $110k

As with quoted figures everywhere please take these with a large pinch of salt :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hope with "Mobile/Web Engineers" they don't actually mean native iOS / Android development, because it would be a shame to see them lower than everybody else.

</comment><comment><USER15> The link in the article to the most poachable players sure is an interesting one... never seen names and numbers called out so bluntly - their employers must thrilled. (Oh well I guess thats part of the game...)

[http://www.betabeat.com/2011/11/17/new-york-techs-20-most- po...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/11/17/new-york-techs-20-most-poachable- players/)

<comment><USER16> I suspect that a bunch of the numbers quoted there are dramatically on the low side, though.

<comment><USER15> I wonder how they came up with any of the numbers frankly. They seem weirdly detailed for being algorithmic. Pretty entertaining though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The average Ruby salary is about 3% higher than the average Python salary.

Not a big difference.

</comment><comment><USER18> A lot of these jobs are not entry-level, but I believe that jobs in CA (in the Bay Area) have equal or higher entry-level salaries. Can anyone confirm that people in tech jobs are paid more in Silicon Valley than in NYC?

</comment><comment><USER19> Holy fuck you Americans are well paid...

80k is a very respectable salary here in Sweden. Hell, I know plenty of programmer working for 40k a year. In the US it seems like the norm for recompense is 100k+. What gives?

<comment><USER20> I'm an American, in America. 80k is a very respectable salary here in America too, and I know programmers working for 40k a year.

The United States is a very large, very socioeconomically diverse country. It is after all, iirc, at least as large as all of Europe. So no, not all American devs are paid that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> where is .net?

<comment><USER22> Who cares?

<comment><USER23> Quite a lot of people, actually. Thanks for the insightful post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Those salaries seem inflated, like most of the ads for developers.

The data source is CyberCoders. A ouiji board is more accurate.

<comment><USER25> Inflated?

I was thinking they were at least $20K on the low side.

<comment><USER26> Note that it is an average. If all your friends are making $120,000 per year, and all dsolomon's friends are making $50,000 per year, the average income is going to somewhere between both of your expectations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _Hammer Carpenter_</comment>


Ask HN: How Would You Negotiate This Deal? - <AUTHOR>

Last Friday was a pretty interesting day.  A friend of a friend's dad whom I have never met randomly called me out of the blue and said he wanted to have lunch with me to discuss some potential web development work.  I went and had lunch with him and he's a great guy - we both went to the same school, same major, captain of the same sport, etc.
I can't really get too detailed, but long story short, he and a friend of his have an idea that will satisfy a fairly boring need for a fairly boring industry and as far as they can tell this idea has never been done before.  I was skeptical, so I did my own research and it looks like they might be right.  What makes this venture so interesting is that they legitimately know all of the key players in the industry and can probably rally them all to use this product.
He wants a prototype built (which will be pretty simple to do given the requirements he gave me) and eventually it came time to talk about compensation.  He said that I could submit a quote, but he also started to mention that I could do it for "free" and have a vested interest (I assume a percentage of ownership) in the venture.  That's about when we parted ways.
Here's my question:  How would you negotiate this?  As far as I can tell it's never been done before and I'm confident that they know the right people and would most likely be able to convince them to use this product/service.  I'll be doing most of the grunt work (design, development, deployment) and his friend will be contacting his connections to use the product.  As far as I can tell, my friend's friend's dad is more or less the middle man that happened to come up with the idea.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! <comment><USER2> I would draw up a quote on how much you would charge for the work, submit that to him and say that you're open to discuss equity arrangements.

Then you can make a decision based on how much you want to risk.

Without knowing the whole situation, I personally would lean towards taking cash. Offers like this are a dime a dozen. If you want to work for equity, there's tons of people looking for a technical co-founder. I would reserve taking equity for situations where you play a more active part in the direction of the business.

<comment><USER3> Good plan.

I'd add that a mix of (vesting) equity and cash may be a good outcome of the discussion if you can spend a significant amount of time on the project for a while (1+ years). If you don't want to spend that kind of time on this, then the equity doesn't seem like a great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was in a very similar position first year out of university. Had just started in a consulting firm but a friend who was a graphic designer who I did some web app and database coding for at Uni approached me with a business idea. His friend who was a tradesman but had built business and now had some cash that he was looking to invest.

This tradesman was single and just started using some of the then "newish" on- line dating sites in Australia. His idea was this was a growing market and why could we not build a site also. He would provide the funds for hosting, legal etc, my other friend would do the design and graphics and me and another friend from Uni would do the backend code.

We were each offered a deal where would not get paid but get 5% each in the new company. The graphics guy would get 20% and the money guy 60%. I think this is where the problems originally started. We agreed to this but we were not happy with the deal and felt that since we were doing a lot of the work we should get a larger percentage of equity although we were not putting up any cash.

Anyways we wrote the entire thing in cold fusion, then re-wrote it in .Net, because we decided halway through it was better [Duke Nukem problem]. The scope kept expanding, we had a major problem with the fact that we had no idea how to get a database of people to start with, who wants to be the first one on a a dating site? Also the real killer was that the day job was getting increasingly busy and it was hard to find time to work on this project and again motivation was a major factor. We gave up with the site about 80% complete, lost the relationships with the graphics friend and his benefactor (he lost his about $1-2k invested in hosting, domain name and legal feeds in setting up the company). Never know if the site would have been a hit or we would have lost the house getting hacked due to the multiple SQL injection vulnerabilities that existed in the code.

So some lessons I would suggest: A) Get a good deal that you are going to be happy with and what will motivate you (whether real or not even on the social network Zuckerburg got a 70-30 split for technical vs financial input). A split of a discounted daily rate as well some equity I think is a good balance. That way if you do believe in the site there is a skin in the game and access to possible future returns. If it goes no where you have some cash for your work and lessons learnt B) Make sure you write down and agree the requirements and scope and both parties have to agree in writing for any variation - agree upfront what you will launch with and try very hard not to change this. Agree what the warranty period will be to fix bugs, and what will be an enhancement that will require additional fee / equity.

C) Make sure you realistically have the time to work on this.

Good luck wish you all the best!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the anecdote - sorry to hear things turned out that way! I agree that a split of a discounted daily rate and equity is a good balance, and I do have concrete requirements. Do you know of any good resources for writing contracts? I know the other guy's got a lawyer to help him with trademarking and stuff, but since I don't have a lot of cash to throw around I'll probably have to do it myself...

<comment><USER4> In the UK you can get a free 30 minutes consulting at most law firms if you are a small business. I did that: <http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/home.law>

See if they have something similar in the US (assuming thats where you are from). Ask them for a template contract, some may give it to you for free or maybe couple $100. Remember though a contract is just a piece of paper: <http://bit.ly/bHuFAK>

Also I don't mind sharing a base contract I got from my lawyer for software development, hell I paid so much money for it the more people that get use the better. Drop me an email email@example.com

My blog on some lessons I have learnt on my current go at a web startup, some things may help: <http://bit.ly/d23Dzp>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're going to be "doing it for free" you want to make sure what "it" is. Software NEVER ENDS. Say you do the prototype, they talk to a few people, they come back with another list of features - how do you tell them no at that point? Even a fixed quote on this sort of project is risky unless you really nail down what you're building.

Quote them on the prototype and do the bare minimum they'll need to sell it into the market. Don't sign over your IP for the code (remember - if you write it, you own it).

Once they've got some runs on the board, then negotiate equity in the product because at that point you have equal power - they have the clients, you have the product.

I would strongly advise against working for free in exchange for equity - it's a common story and not one that I've ever heard positive stories about from those involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've got a list of software requirements and together they do essentially create a MVP. I'm not well versed on the whole intellectual property legalities of this scenario. Do you know of any good resources I could use to learn more about it?

Thanks for your help!

<comment><USER5> Nope, sorry. I don't even know what MVP stands for. Most Valuable Player?

<comment><AUTHOR> Minimum Viable Product :)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like an intriguing offer.

I'm not sure where you are in life (job, family, et al), so let's just assume you are in a position with nothing to lose besides your time in this situation...

I would consider the vested interest.

If it's as seamless as it sounds with these connections, it sounds like you are set up for success (it's rarely as seamless as it seems but all things considered, this sounds pretty good).

Just make sure they give you a decent cut -

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that's kind of what really sparked my interest. 24 years old, no debt, no real financial responsibility (except keeping the 'ol cat fed), etc.

What would you consider to be a decent cut? That's really where I'm stuck...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another way to look at it can to ask yourself the question

"What do you stand to loose?" - Worst case scenario you would have spend time on creating something which gets failed or they cut you off - In any situation you'll be learning invaluable lessons.

Of course if you end up taking up resources in form of people or material you can ask them to take the costs up for that. Try to position yourself a technical co founder on the team.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is kind of the way I was looking at it. I think if nothing else it'll be a decent way to get my name out there since this guy seems to know a whole bunch of people in the area. Thanks for the insight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> First decide what you want out of the deal. Do you want to get into business with a couple guys that seem legit, but on the other hand, you've just met them? If you wound up with a minority piece of the equity, they might see you only as a "service provider" who can be bossed around. What if their idea is good, but their execution sucks? It doesn't sound like they have any track record in web sites.

Whenever anyone suggests you work for "free," that's a giant red flag. Try asking for 50% of the equity. If they balk, quote some numbers. Or use the hybrid approach as others suggested.

Remember this old saying about "spec work." Don't "spec" to get paid.

</comment><comment><USER9> My gut says first treat it as strictly a service contract.

Equity is a potential bonus, but also a distraction and should not substitute for initial work with people you barely know...structuring the deal right is complex and expensive.

Finally, there may be a good reason that it "has never been done before." Knowing the key players isn't the same as getting them to fall over themselves to pay you.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would take the record producer approach and get paid a lot up front. Only because I've been in the EXACT same position once and took a tiny (near-free) salary for "a vested interest" and got fucked. Equity in a private concern like this is worth nothing. You should get paid in dollars (or whatever your local currency is).

<comment><USER11> Or a combination that is very heavily weighted to cash. Instead of $120 an hour, $100 an hour and 1% of the company. That way, if it becomes Google, your (eventual 0.01%) stake is worth something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm, I hadn't considered a combo deal like that. That'd be nice too because then I could continue to put food on the table and claim a stake in the venture. Thanks for your insight!</comment></comment></comment>


Jurymind moves weight of jury duty into your phone - <AUTHOR> http://startuplansing.org/startup-spotlight-jurymind/

<comment><USER2> Neat product. But it doesn't replace the need for the "10 minute phone calls" since they cannot legally require potential Jurors to have a smartphone or justify dismissing them if they don't.

So ultimately all you've done is double some court clerk's work to now update both the calls and app API.

Plus I have a bunch of security/privacy questions relating to this. If you allow people to get Jury info before they first appear, then anyone also can. If you don't then what good is it? So is there now the work of sending out passwords to all potential Jurors?

I guess I just struggle seeing a really technophobic court system adopting this. I also see it being a lot of additional work for them, with the pay off being, what? Making the Juror's life easier? But you are "selling" this to the courts, they seem to gain nothing and lose a lot.

If you really believe more people will turn up because there is an app and password, you'll have to explain how that works. Seems like you've just added more steps, and I also doubt the "10 minute phone calls" at the primary thing driving people away from Jury duty.

<comment><AUTHOR> Much and truly thanks for providing some thoughtful feedback. As someone who personally felt the pain from the juror perspective, I actually had no idea about the pains felt by court administrators. The courts we've been working with in determining our MVP are extremely interested in what Jurymind provides as far as a way to more conveniently connect with jurors. They recognize people don't want to do jury duty, and that manifests in many ways. Anything they can do reduce friction communicating is a welcome tool. If a court can save 5 jurors a month from becoming no shows, that's worth the time and expense. A smaller county can easily send summonses to over 500 potential jurors per month. With no show rates averaging in the 30-40%range, we see a compelling opportunity.

Jury clerks certainly don't want more work, either... Who does? Our process has boiled it down to just a few clicks to send out notifications to any jurors using the app. That's a mere fraction of the time it takes just to record the daily phone message, even if it's done in one take (rare). Having shown our app to a room full of jury clerks, including some voicing concerns about more workload, they were adequately impressed with the easy of use. Some were downright excited.

Privacy is another very obvious area of concern. We actually neither store nor require any personally identifiable juror information. At most, we ask for a juror number from the summons and name of the court. No other info or even password needed. We're ultimately not providing jurors with more confidential information than any person - juror or otherwise - could get by dialing the jury "hotline" and listening to the extremely verbose recording every day. Our objective is to provide it in a much more proactive, clear, and convenient fashion.

Final thought... Courts are already well underway in converting to paperless records and court management software, so technophobia isn't really an option any more. State and federal grants are available for adding innovative technologies into the justice system. Not saying every court is or will go this route, but we're also not pioneering computer use in the courts with our app. They've already embraced it more than I would have thought myself.

Again, much thanks for engaging! I'd be most curious to hear how the added info might affect your thoughts. Feel free to continue here or drop me a line privately.</comment></comment>


DMCA Copyright Complaint to Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257# <comment><AUTHOR> This removes a variety of projects from Google search results, including ones from Mozilla (specifically, Rust), Facebook, Yahoo, Netflix, openSUSE, as well as github documentation, e.g.

      - https://github.com/yahoo/pure
      - https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
      - https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked
      - https://github.com/Netflix/Lipstick
      - https://github.com/facebook/rebound
      - https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-errors/

(NB. the sender, wickedpictures.com, is NSFW.)

<comment><USER2> Actually, this was sent by "Takedown Piracy LLC" working on behalf of Wickedpictures. They file DMCA notices by the truckload according to the results I get in Chilling Effect's search, so you can safely assume they're a DMCA notice spammer.

Unfortunately, it does not list the individual lawyer who signed off on this complaint, or I would be tempted to draft a letter to their local bar association pointing out how careless they are, as no reasonable person could mistake Github's documentation for a porno movie.

<comment><USER3> Rule 34.

<comment><USER4> Oh, commit to me!

<comment><USER5> That doesnt sound very sexy. Surely we should all be forking each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you send bogus DMCA takedown notices, and this qualifies as one, there can be legal consequences. The DMCA requires:

 _" A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."_

Whoops! This particular list of "infringing" URLs wasn't actually, well, accurate. The problem for whoever sent this bogus takedown (Wicked Pictures or its agent) is that now they can be held liable.

In a case brought by EFF in response to an earlier bogus takedown from Diebold, a federal judge in California held that Diebold could be "liable for damages" \-- even though Diebold had by that point withdrawn the takedown request and promised not to send another.

DMCA 512 section (f) says that someone sending bogus takedowns "shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees..." In the Diebold case, Diebold eventually paid EFF something like $125K in lawyer fees.

Note that this situation probably won't get that far. That's because the DMCA doesn't require Google or any other provider to comply with bogus takedown notices. And Google happens to have some smart attorneys (at least one ex-EFF lawyer, in fact) on its payroll who are well aware of that fact.

<comment><USER7> > _Note that this situation probably won 't get that far. That's because the > DMCA doesn't require Google or any other provider to comply with bogus > takedown notices. And Google happens to have some smart attorneys (at least > one ex-EFF lawyer, in fact) on its payroll who are well aware of that fact._

Google removed all URLs except 3:

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/github.com/)

In other words, Google is _not_ the EFF.

<comment><USER8> Considering that they get requests for something like 8 million URLs to be removed every week, your ire seems a bit misdirected.

Safe harbor has enabled the modern web in many ways, but the DMCA takedown process is still heavily, heavily weighted toward the claimants.

It looks more like the URLs not taken down were mostly malformed or duplicates of earlier claims and they took action on the rest. Purposefully not acting on DMCA complaints due to obviously bogus takedown notices doesn't happen very often because you generally have to be really sure of what you're doing. Hard to do that when you have 8 million URLs to sift through to find the problematic ones.

<comment><USER7> > _your ire seems a bit misdirected._

Ire? You are misreading my comment. I merely sought to correct the parent poster's view that Google would not remove anything partly because they have lawyers who used to work at the EFF. The fact is that Google _did_ remove almost everything, and merely employing people who used to work for the EFF does not cause Google to _be_ the EFF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This chillingeffects site is quite fascinating. There seem to be a _lot_ of instances of completely mistaken and reckless DMCA takedowns. Here's a particularly absurd one:

[https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1148744](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1148744)

I'm not sure a single URL in that list is actually infringing. The only thing they seem to have in common is the name "Adam".

<comment><USER10> So one could file a bogus takedown for a competitor's website, etc. Ugh.

<comment><USER11> It's very unlikely that Google would follow through on an obviously wrong takedown unless if the competitor was actually infringing copyright.

EDIT: Well, yes, they did do that here. My bad. My original point was that Competitor A submitting a wanton DMCA takedown against Competitor B wouldn't fly past Google's radar.

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately not every company has Google's ability to manually sift through every bogus takedown request thrown their way.

<comment><USER12> > _Unfortunately not every company has Google 's ability to manually sift > through every bogus takedown request thrown their way._

Is there any evidence at all that _Google_ actually manually sifts through every takedown (or even any takedown), or is everyone just speculating that they must because they Google?

I have no idea, but if we actually have evidence or public statement from Google to that effect, I'd be interested. And I definitely wouldn't assume it without that. But lots of people in these comment threads seem to be doing so (unless there's some widely known reports or evidence I don't know about?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Presumably, Takedown Piracy LLC and their client would have to have signed the Sworn Statements on Google's DMCA page [0]:

        I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted
        materials described above as allegedly infringing is not
        authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

        The information in this notification is accurate and I
        swear, under penalty of perjury, that I am the copyright
        owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an
        exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Is there any recourse or punishment for falsely submitting a DMCA takedown request for content that is actually not under their copyright?

[0] [https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca- notice?rd=1](https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-notice?rd=1)

<comment><USER13> You actually can take them to court over false notices.

But that takes time and money most projects don't have.

If Github has the cash sitting around they could sick their lawyers on them for some laughs.

<comment><USER14> A lawyer could make quite a bundle by taking these lawsuits on commission, ambulance chasing / patent troll style.

After securing power of attorney from actual owner, mail form letters requesting immediate withdrawal of dmca and payment of a "small settlement" for the damages caused by it.

Heck, maybe the EFF could get a bunch of junior lawyers on this, it would likely pay by itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How the hell does [https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast- forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward- errors/) relate to their movies?

Why are they allowed to take down sites so obviously unrelated?

I imagine it's pretty easy to use this sort of takedown in a malicious manner to remove competitors' sites, surely there is some defense mechanism against this?

<comment><USER2> > How the hell does [https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast- > forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forwa..). > relate to their movies?

It doesn't. This outfit, per Chilling Effect's search, pumps out notices by the hundreds. Most likely they use some script or tool to grab a bunch of URLs from various Google searches, then dump them into a form letter. I'm not sure if anyone was supposed to weed out the obviously bogus output, but I think we can all see that nothing of the sort happened.

They churn these out fast enough that nobody is actually paying any real attention to what they're doing from what I've seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is most likely due to a script screwing up. A lot of these companies retain companies that specialize in filing these requests (see: www.google/com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/faq/ for some more details.

My limited understanding is that these companies just use google search apis to try to find search results matching keywords. Then they file requests for every matching url. This is how obviously wrong requests show up.

There are also cases where requests appear to be malicious, but there are really no consequences since you (iirc) have to prove bad faith which is next to impossible and since everything is being adjudicated via third parties, there is really no incentive.

<comment><USER17> Proving bad faith or that someone "knowingly materially misrepresents... that material or activity is infringing" when it's completely automated sounds very difficult.

<comment><USER18> One has to wonder if that's part of the intent.

"Oh, haha, sorry about that. Our automated tool screwed the pooch on that one. We promise we'll do better next time."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I hear that [https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast- forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward- errors/) is pretty hot.

<comment><USER20> hard core - it contains push, pull, fetch and even merge. NSFW!

<comment><USER21> Most sexy of all: rebase. You can go back and do things differently the second time around.

<comment><USER22> git push --force is often neglected, but it's rather kinky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow, this is awesome, thank you! It would have taken a half hour to come up with such an extensive list of torrent sites, and here they've done all the hard work for me! Merry Christmas to me!

Side note - I'm surprised they've included some pages which do not contain copyrighted work though, they may be exposing themselves on that one.

<comment><USER24> As I was scrolling through the list, that was my thought too... "Hey, check out all these porn sites I didn't know about!"

Then I realized their master plan: they're protecting their business model by (1) making it harder for us to do our work since it's harder for us to find the software libraries/tools we need, and (2) by providing us with a list of porn sites they fill up the time we would've otherwise spent coding.

<comment><USER25> Some are pretty terrible though. At the bottom of the list there's a link to "the rocki whore picture show". Why would anyone want to create that in the first place? (apart from satisfying the "there's porn version of it on the internet" rule)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This whole DMCA reporting business is pretty interesting

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/reporters/1620/Takedown- Piracy-LLC/)

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/reporters/?r=all- time)

This husband wife team is racking up some huge censorship numbers.

</comment><comment><USER27> One of my projects is on this list. #95 - [https://github.com/wearefractal/glob- watcher](https://github.com/wearefractal/glob-watcher)

Just a small Javascript module I wrote to power gulpjs ([http://gulpjs.com](http://gulpjs.com)). This system is totally broken.

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/github.com/)

That page shows all the dmca requests to google that target github.com. Wicked pictures shows up in a number of requests but they are by no means the only copyright holder issuing requests.

You can click through to the request pages and get links to chilling effects and it will also tell you which URLs were requested that were _not_ taken down. ChillingEffects just reports on the requests, not the actions.

<comment><USER28> So Google removed them all except 3? That seems pretty bad.

<comment><USER29> If companies didn't remove targets of takedown requests immediately and without scrutiny, then user content on the internet would not be able to exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Have submitted a counter-complaint (#2-4109000005746) for the following:

# curl [https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/10275257) | grep github

         https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward-errors/
         https://github.com/Zizzamia/ng-tasty
         https://github.com/zen-kernel/zen-kernel
         https://github.com/yahoo/pure/releases/
         https://github.com/yahoo/pure
         https://github.com/YabataDesign/afterglow-theme
         https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew
         https://github.com/wearefractal/glob-watcher
         https://github.com/wanderlust/wanderlust
         https://github.com/thombergs/wicked-charts
         https://github.com/Thibauth/python-pushover
         https://github.com/tcnksm/vagrant-pushover
         https://github.com/substack/pushover
         https://github.com/SteveSanderson/knockout-es5
         https://github.com/sps/pushover4j
         https://github.com/sensu/sensu-community-plugins/blob/master/handlers/notification/pushover.rb
         https://github.com/schneems/wicked/wiki/Testing-Wicked-with-RSpec
         https://github.com/schneems/wicked
         https://github.com/satyr/coco
         https://github.com/satyr
         https://github.com/sampsyo/beets/issues/546
         https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo
         https://github.com/rniemeyer/knockout-delegatedEvents
         https://github.com/rniemeyer/knockout-amd-helpers
         https://github.com/qbit/node-pushover
         https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked/issues/432
         https://github.com/openSUSE/wicked
         https://github.com/Nuku/Flexible-Survival/blob/master/Stripes/Candy
         https://github.com/Netflix/Lipstick
         https://github.com/nemomobile/lipstick
         https://github.com/mrmrs/colors
         https://github.com/mirage
         https://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf/issues/78
         https://github.com/LubosD/darling
         https://github.com/laprice/pushover
         https://github.com/kryap/php-pushover
         https://github.com/krisselden/broccoli-sane-watcher
         https://github.com/Knockout-Contrib/Knockout-Validation
         https://github.com/knockout/knockout
         https://github.com/knockout
         https://github.com/kirang20/wgxp-java-rosa
         https://github.com/jreese/znc-push/blob/master/doc/pushover.md
         https://github.com/jnwatts/pushover.sh
         https://github.com/jfinkels/flask-restless/
         https://github.com/jasonlewis/resource-watcher
         https://github.com/huxi/lilith
         https://github.com/hannorein/rebound
         https://github.com/gregghz/Watcher
         https://github.com/feuerbach/tasty
         https://github.com/facebook/rebound-js
         https://github.com/facebook/rebound
         https://github.com/erniebrodeur/pushover
         https://github.com/entertailion/Fling/blob/master/README.md
         https://github.com/enkydu/raspi_runner
         https://github.com/dyaa/Laravel-pushover
         https://github.com/danesparza/Pushover.NET
         https://github.com/crazed
         https://github.com/callmenick/css-loaders-spinners-2/tree/master/js
         https://github.com/callmenick/css-loaders-spinners-2
         https://github.com/allure-framework/allure-core
         https://github.com/abrt/satyr

Thanks for reaching out to us!

We have received your legal request. We receive many such complaints each day; your message is in our queue, and we'll get to it as quickly as our workload permits.

Due to the large volume of requests that we experience, please note that we will only be able to provide you with a response if we determine your request may be a valid and actionable legal complaint, and we may respond with questions or requests for clarification. For more information on Google's Terms of Service, please visit [http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS](http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS)

Regards,

The Google Team

<comment><USER31> Are they going to accept that counter-complaint, coming from a third party? (yes, I should probably read up on DMCA procedures)

<comment><USER32> GitHub doesn't :( I filed one for the craftbukkit takedown a while back, and got a polite response saying it has to be the content owner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Also among them: [https://github.com/facebook/rebound- js](https://github.com/facebook/rebound-js) [https://github.com/facebook/rebound](https://github.com/facebook/rebound)

</comment><comment><USER34> There should be harsh penalties against wrongfully filed DMCA's, did they Google Search a keyword then blanket filed a ton of URL's?

</comment><comment><USER35> [https://github.com/schneems/wicked/wiki/Testing-Wicked- with-...](https://github.com/schneems/wicked/wiki/Testing-Wicked-with-RSpec) was removed.. is Google automating these??

<comment><USER36> Automating stuff is sort of Google's mantra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Nobody's pointed it out, so I'll say I'm really surprised wet-boew was picked up in all this -- it's from the Government of Canada, and what they've done to try and advance web accessibility, etc. [http://wet- boew.github.io/v4.0-ci/index-en.html#about](http://wet- boew.github.io/v4.0-ci/index-en.html#about)

The name is not ... the greatest, though. Maybe they should have called it "Boilerplate, eh?" ;)

<comment><USER38> Yeah we aren't the best at coming up with names, we love acronyms and they always have to be bilingual.

So Web Experience Toolkit - Boîte à outils de l'expérience Web

I'm pretty sure it was named by a committee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Including:

[https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast- forwa...](https://help.github.com/articles/dealing-with-non-fast-forward- errors/)

[https://github.com/yahoo/pure](https://github.com/yahoo/pure)

</comment><comment><USER40> For the record, I had reported something similar to HN a few months ago about education.github.com.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7940883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7940883) [https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1724976](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1724976)

</comment><comment><USER41> Some of the urls in there are clearly unrelated; too bad everyone will have to counter notice to restore services.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm surprised that one of the disruptive groups has not written a couple of bots that do mass DMCA takedown across a wide range of providers and content. Sure, it's illegal but that hasn't stopped them before. It feels like an easy way to create havoc.

</comment><comment><USER43> A letter I wrote them (as a collaborator on Knockout, one of the referred-to repositories):

[https://github.com/knockout/knockout/issues/1674#issuecommen...](https://github.com/knockout/knockout/issues/1674#issuecomment-69030783)

</comment><comment><USER44> Wow, I'm not familiar with this film studio, but this is a terrible move on their part. I don't go to the movies much anyway, but I'm gonna try to avoid paying for any of their films, and I urge everyone who cares about an open internet to do the same.

<comment><USER45> These movies don't get released to the cinemas. Well, not NORMAL cinemas :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's the counter to the DMCA (as it relates to Google Search): Browser app which parses the linked DMCA complaint and lists the probable URLs in the complaint, related to the search being performed.

</comment><comment><USER46> Google's legal department might be a fun place for a machine learning expert to spend some time teaching machines to detect bogus DMCA takedowns.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is there any tool to put back URLs from chillingeffects.org back to Google search results? Should not be that hard to make one (i.e. Firefox plugin).

<comment><USER48> The problem is that you lose ranking information. These are just a bunch of URLs unsorted (or maybe lexicographically sorted) in a file. It would be quite hard to seamlessly include the URLs.

AFAIK ddg does not take down search results based on DMCA notices but I'm not sure about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Someone should write a script to just DMCA anyone that trolls legitimate projects and use the rules against these asshats.

</comment><comment><USER50> I posted this in #rust because I was having trouble with rustc and targets. Thanks for posting this!

<comment><USER50> I must say though. This was unnoticed for a week if I first reported this!

[https://botbot.me/mozilla/rust/2015-01-07/?msg=28933399&page...](https://botbot.me/mozilla/rust/2015-01-07/?msg=28933399&page=3)

<comment><USER51> Thanks for reporting it! The proper Mozilla folk seem to be taking action at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why on earth do search engines even respond to DMCA complaints? This is madness.

<comment><USER53> Because it's the law?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why do we even waste time and effort for just porn...

<comment><USER55> Because money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> May be NSFW, depending on your workplace.

<comment><USER57> I almost looked up `Wicked Pictures` while at work, but (thankfully) stopped once I read a few of those URLs and realized... yeah, that's not something I want to be going to at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> It's getting to the point where you can just scrape chillingeffects.org to find all the hottest torrent sites hosting actual content.</comment>


DevOps landscape overview - <AUTHOR> https://devup.co/a-look-at-devops-tools-landscape-7220099c6b81#.az6xbfws1 <comment><USER2> Great handy primer that can be used for quick reference.

The DevOps and Site Reliability roles really suffer from a lack of quick and easy to use visibility at the container and service level, though.

Sensu and others work well for smaller Ops teams but not quite the best option when you start to get into 20+ services domain.</comment>


Breaking Bad 404 Error - <AUTHOR> https://tonx.org/s

<comment><USER2> I love creative 404 errors. Unfortunately I only see them when I'm frustrated trying to find something that's been moved or deleted and I ideally want to never see them at all.</comment>


Ask HN: Should hi-profile tech people keep personal views off social media? - <AUTHOR> Many individuals in the tech community have curated their list of people to follow across social media platforms in order to hear the great insights of lots of people, yet they come across a lot of personal opinions, political views, profane rants, etc. from those very people that have nothing to do with tech.
Even with a curated list specifically to get tech viewpoints, news of upcoming releases/functionality, recently published articles, best practices, there is still plenty of muck-throwing that comes along with all social media from these very people, or irrelevant material that clogs up news feeds that were meant to be a place for tech learning.
Should consumers of social media re-curate their lists of who they follow to avoid this, should they suck it up and accept that these are real people with real feelings and other interests (who happen to do tech to pay the bills), should professionals have a pure-tech profile and a separate hybrid profile, or some other option? <comment><USER2> I think this is a failure of platforms to let people separate the content they care about from the content they don't. People should be able to tag their content with the stream it should go to and allow people to only subscribe to the streams they care about, or explicitly mute the ones they don't.</comment>